Now you would expect this to be a fairly good source with accurate information

A bad subject matter to map to begin with...agreed

But the Map data is crap.Richmond, London not Richmond Near Darlington.

Hillsborough, London, not Near Reading..

A simple QA of the data would point that out.

But points for murders based on London Boroughs centroid (center of a polygon)"In one of the most detailed breakdowns recorded of murders in the UK, figures revealed a sharp rise in the number of teenagers being killed, that there were 70 stabbed to death and 30 shootings, and that the peak time for murder was on Sundays between 12-4am." Source: Telegraph

Comments about this map - so positive!

just reading the comments of the map"This map is pathetic. It's dumb to have markers for boroughs rather than murders. You even obscure the basic information about murder count -- we have to click through links and scroll down to see the full list of murder counts, whereas you could have shown the same information more cleanly in a plain text table. You might order it alphabetically (so I can see quickly where my borough falls), or my count (so I can see quickly which boroughs are best and worst).You should do another map with one pin per murder. "

"This map is virtually useless. The best web map of this sort is published by the Los Angeles Times. Each symbol on it represents a homicide, and users can select characteristics such as age, race, or sex, and then map them separately. Moreover, every symbol is connected to a description of the homicide it represents.The map is updated regularly and from it one can follow the changes in homicide incidence from week to week."

4 Comments:

Great example. Before clicking on the map on the article page to enlarge it, I assumed every pin was a murder and therefore thought the murders were evenly distributed across the city, and not concentrated at all!

Clarification: Their map was created using Google MyMaps (wyzziwig interface), and that the map you point to was created using the Maps API.

I'd suggest that if they don't have access to heat map creation technology (GeoIQ is down), they might use something like MapIconMaker to atleast indicate intensity with the icons. And, yes, borders would be a big help.